
“Have the Lessons of the Lac-Mégantic Rail Disaster Been Learned?”, a conference exploring the impact of the disaster and the future of energy transportation in Canada, took place at the University of Ottawa on December 8, 2016.
The conference brought together, for the first time in a public forum, representatives of citizens’ groups from Lac-Mégantic to engage with politicians, legal scholars, rail safety and regulatory policy experts. The conference provided a much-needed opportunity for discussion, debate and identification of possible avenues of consensus for moving forward.
The conference addressed four critically important issues:
1) the impact of the disaster on the Lac-Mégantic community;
2) the ability of the transportation regulatory system to ensure that the transportation of dangerous goods by rail can be done safely;
3) the ability of the Canadian justice system to deal with the consequences of Lac-Mégantic and other major disasters, as well as the role of local authorities in the Canadian constitutional context; and,
4) the implications of the disaster for the future development of energy transportation infrastructure and unconventional oil development.
Video Archive
Click here to view the two morning panels (YouTube) *Presentations begin at the 48-minute mark
Click here to view the two afternoon panels (YouTube) *Presentations begin at the 12-minute mark
Click here to view the first session of the conference (CPAC)
Conference Materials
(The documents are available in the language in which they were created)
Click here to view the conference program.
Panel 1: Summary
Panel 2: Summary
Panel 3: Summary
Panel 4: Summary
Presentation: Liette Gilbert
Presentation: Robert Bellefleur
Presentation: André Blais
Presentation: Gilles Fluet
Presentation: Nicole Jetté
Presentation: Jacques Gagnon
Presentation: David Robitaille
Presentation: Heather McLeod-Kilmurray
Presentation: Valerie Akujobi
Presentation: Mark Winfield
Presentation: Jasmine van Schouwen
Presentation: Ian Naish
Presentation: Brian Stevens
Presentation: Christine Collins
Presentation: Harry Gow
Presentation: René David-Cooper
Presentation: Bruce Campbell (adjoining PowerPoint presentation)